Ocean content: This one QoL change could significantly improve the experience!

[Wumpair]

I thought that while we "patiently" wait for the next beta (let them cook, people!!!), we could discuss a bit about the ocean and what Klei should change with it in future updates.

I personally have mixed feelings about the whole ocean debate.

On one hand, it is full of mini-adventures that don't accomplish anything major but add variety to your gameplay: you can get replantable reeds and bananas from the monkeys, a giant tree for fig-related food and summer protection, or a saltbox that keeps your food from spoiling.

Even the malbatross is a boss that I feel fine with; you don't need a ton of preparation for it (only a boomerang/ice staff, healing, armor, weapon, an anchor if you want an easier time, and a row), and the loot is also not too major but is a QoL improvement for people sailing (unlike Toadstool or Crab King that are resource eaters with mediocre loot; but those are "endurance fights," "fun" in their way).

On the other hand, the ocean feels empty. If you want to find something particular, then it takes forever; sometimes you can spend an hour sailing seeking salt formations to help Pearl with her house and not find them. So how could we solve this issue? I have an idea!

What is the common thing between Lunar Island, Pearl Island, and Crab King? You can find them without sailing! Lunar Island can be spotted by world generation signs, astral detector, or the year of the catcoon (this one is more of a niche); Pearl has her bottles; Crab King has the astral detector. Being able to find these places quicker makes sailing much more fun because if you want to get kelp from Lunar Island, you don't need to look forever to find it. I remember how everyone was happy when the astral detector was added, and you could find Crab King faster.

On the other hand, Monkey Island, Malbatross, or the fig-biome, how do you find them? Pure luck (or changing to Woody and going Canada mode). And I am not counting monkey raids; their rate was nerfed to a state that I never see one except if I am literally a few tiles from the island.

The ocean would be more fun if you could have a way to find the different "biomes" in it, without the endless sailing; but I guess there is nothing like that... But wait, what is that? Wheeler's compass?!

That is right! So in the Hamlet DLC for regular DS, the character Wheeler has a compass, in which you can put items, and it will show the nearest source of it (for instance, you put gold and it points to a statue with gold in it). What if we had a similar item in DST?

Maybe it could be "The Nautical Compass" and could only show the direction to sea-based biomes. For instance: give the compass a banana, and it will point to Monkey Island; a leafy meat, and it will point to the fig-biome; a feather could point to Malbatross, etc.

Of course, any addition to the ocean like a new biome or creatures is always welcomed, but those take time to develop, and Klei is currently working on other things. By adding this one QoL item, I feel like more people will enjoy sailing!

What do you think?

[Captain_Rage]

Venturing into and charting the unknown without any directions is nice. If you knew exactly where to the islands are people would whine even more about the ocean being "pointless and empty".

Personally I think the ocean works great as is. The abundance and non-renewability of Sea Stacks is the only annoying thing. Their shear number is not very exciting and it still does not feel fun to destroy them since it is not possible to make them reappear, if you would want them back against all odds.

It would be nice if there was similar seasonal and more dynamic threat like ice bergs instead, and some rougher areas where the tide would make indestructible Sea Stacks a bigger / smaller threat over the course of the day.

[-Kiyo-]

Sailing isn't fun for me because you can't ever simply "set sail" and enjoy the wind on your face as you travel from A to B. It's plagued with intermittent obstacle courses like rocks and Sea Weed and Cookie Cutters while the rafts are sluggish to steer. Most of the time you're not even really sure where you're going as you point out. And when you do know your destination the trip is often realy short.

Contrast Shipwrecked where waves present a similar sailing obstacle but a more organic one. They're dynamic, It's easier to avoid them if you need to, or sail over them if it's convenient. Because your boat is faster. The punishment for crashing into one isn't a gear-check that will bring your vessel down to zero health. The ocean feels vast, and there's always something one island away you could use.

I understand Together's sailing is different. Not better or worse - different. Raising anchor and lowering sails is expected to be a moment. Manning a ship with friends can be fun. Fishing in the ocean is really good! But the constant hard obstacles take away from that fun. And in the end, where does one really go but in circles? Adding random biomes around the continent isn't the solution, see Waterlogged and Moon Quay for that answer. Not exactly tourist hotspots. Ocean "content" could be as valuable/mandatory as you want it to be and it'd still would be lacking that foundational wanderlust.

[chirsg]

I made a suggestion on the suggestions part of the forums but it's gained 0 traction because there is a conspiracy against me. I am public enemy number 1.

I am a fugitive and a criminal, but I have the best ideas in this entire community.

 

One of my ideas for the ocean is to simply let treasure chests spawn for every single message in a bottle read. 

It wouldn't break the game at all.

[GenomeSquirrel]

the problem with this is that it's giving up on the ocean, allowing you to minimize your time there and get out, and not adding interactive content

[flamboyant wolf]

tbh one change I'd love about sailing would be smoother sail controls (like, maybe being able to control the sail fully, instead of just 8 directions, and overall better controls). Currently, I only use oars, because sails are too tedious to control. 

[Hornete]

10 minutes ago, skile said:

tbh one change I'd love about sailing would be smoother sail controls (like, maybe being able to control the sail fully, instead of just 8 directions, and overall better controls). Currently, I only use oars, because sails are too tedious to control. 

You already can control it 360 degrees, it's just that visually it can only face eight directions.(I assume this is what you mean?)

What CAN face any angle in a full circle visually is the little compass under the mast! It has a little indicator to show the direction as its rendered on the ground. It's a good tool to pay attention to.

 

[flamboyant wolf]

1 hour ago, Hornete said:

You already can control it 360 degrees, it's just that visually it can only face eight directions.(I assume this is what you mean?)

What CAN face any angle in a full circle visually is the little compass under the mast! It has a little indicator to show the direction as its rendered on the ground. It's a good tool to pay attention to.

 

oh, that's nice! 

[MasterDos]

Hello everyone
I don't know about you, but I love swimming in DST! I like to build rafts and think over the location of various buildings, and I also like to sail on four sails and drift like in "Fast and Furious".

It seems to me that this is one of the most exciting stages of the game, when you build the first raft and go to explore the ocean. Empty expanses of water look quite realistic and extremely dangerous, which adds interest to this adventure. Finding the Hermit Island or the Crab King is never a problem if you have played 100+ hours of this game. The lunar island is also not difficult to find (although there are difficulties)

The ocean is beautiful, and there is really a lot of interesting things in it. Perhaps I would like to get some new content, or extensions of the content of the lunar landing. After all, there may be not one pier, but two. And it will be two warring clans of monkeys. And you can join a certain clan and sail under their sails. Perhaps the DST lacks the spirit of piracy a little. Because we only swim and are afraid of the attack of monkeys. But what if we become hired thugs for these monkeys and go to destroy another pier (maybe a Nightmarish pier, by analogy with the lunar one). Think about it. The ocean should become interesting for players, reflecting how cool the mechanics of the raft are implemented.

[bloopah]

2 hours ago, GenomeSquirrel said:

the problem with this is that it's giving up on the ocean, allowing you to minimize your time there and get out, and not adding interactive content

If there are only five unique spots players want to visit, then it's understandable people want something like this.

Expanding the ocean in content and map in size (as well as the five current ocean areas in content and size) would be a good step towards fixing that.

[Cheggf]

40 minutes ago, bloopah said:

If there are only five unique spots players want to visit, then it's understandable people want something like this.

Expanding the ocean in content and map in size (as well as the five current ocean areas in content and size) would be a good step towards fixing that.

There are only two places in the caves anyone would want to visit, but people keep asking for a caves rework instead of a caves compass.

[bloopah]

32 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

There are only two places in the caves anyone would want to visit, but people keep asking for a caves rework instead of a caves compass.

You don't have to travel by boat in the caves.

[Copyafriend]

my problem with the ocean is that it's simultaneously too big and oddly small.

it should have never circled the mainland, the problem is that you have to go around the ENTIRE mainland if something spawned on the opposite side of where you started looking, and can still miss it as the ocean is just big enough to circle it twice and still miss the lunar island/moon quay.

Simultaneously you're never far from either land or the edge of the map. it's cramped but theres so much ocean that you need to search.

Not to mention the random rock pillars just getting in the way and forcing you to stay on edge or you'll slam into an obstacle for no good reason aside from handling issues.

It makes sailing in the night just not super viable, even without wavey jones just literally harassing you and taking your control away from you. You just don't have enough time to reasonably get off of a steering wheel and hit your anchor and actually stop. Yeah you CAN do it, but it's not easy, and you need easy when you're talking about sailing - an experience that should be relaxing.

[Well-met]

people hate sailing because there's too much empty space, no fun surprises and no real incentives beyond a one-time-visit. A compass will not fix this.

here's some ideas 

1. give actual decent loot to crab king so people feel inclined to fight him more than once (rain conch with 5 uses) and increase the claw loot to 2 meats

2. make pirate raids able to happen all over the sea map, but remove the cursed trinkets from the crew.

3. make passing pig boats filled with loot that actively try to escape and despawn from player boats

4. make the antlion able to do things vs boats

5. allow hound waves on the sea again, should be fine with the new system

6. make a second giant bird boss (giant puffin?) that actively spawns near and hunts player boats down  

7. add a dozen random setpieces to the ocean. I feel like klei is starting to undervalue setpieces, yet they bring so much life to the main land. Sunken ships, tiny land formations, floating gear, etc

8. buff sunken treasure chests loot

9. add a new, very expensive boat bumper that destroys sea stacks with no damage

10. make grass gators domesticable and rideable for sea movement

11. make Pearl sell random prepared foods when given her broken gem back (with a rare chance of spiced foods)

12. disable summer smoldering on boats / the sea

13. add ice lands during winter, or icebergs, or pengulls. Anything.

14. add water currents during spring

15. add a spyglass item that allows you to pull back the camera much farther back when on a boat only (dropped by #6 boss)

[Mike23Ua]

The problem with DSTs ocean is that it’s empty and lacking of anything interesting between point A to point B, it’s like a hidden loading screen between actual content, it’s like waiting in a long elevator ride while the level loads.. And it shows in such a painfully obvious way.

You only need to play as Goose Woodie to quickly realize EVERYTHING that’s wrong with the ocean, there’s just nothing to do in it…

And to make matters worse the content your intended to engage with is contained to its own tiny little location, leaving nothing to do in between.

What SHOULD have happened was Waterlogged biomes should’ve been all around the map, Moon Quay Queen should’ve been in one central location.. but Moon Quay islands could’ve popped up in other areas-

The TL:DR is that Klei has all this new terrain, all these new mobs, but instead of making tiny islands out at sea with existing content on them… Klei keeps under using it.

a beach turf island, with a Palmcone Tree, a single Anenemy starfish, a single monkey tail bush, a tiny shell bell, and a Crustashine, a fallen survivors skeleton & a RockJaw circling the island would tell the story of a survivor who got shipwrecked at sea and couldn’t escape due to sharks so they starved to death on the island.

And that above scenario is ONLY using already existing content Klei has added to the game over the years, but under-used.

[Cheggf]

1 hour ago, bloopah said:

You don't have to travel by boat in the caves.

If the caves were an awkward ring and the ocean a flat area the boat would be the easier way to travel. 

45 minutes ago, Copyafriend said:

It makes sailing in the night just not super viable

The map shows you more than you can see with your eyes whether or not it's night. 

[Copyafriend]

4 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

The map shows you more than you can see with your eyes whether or not it's night. 

You’re absolutely right, and i DO use this, i was more highlighting how the issues i was discussing culminate into a general lack of usability once visibility goes down.

it just feels more like a workaround than an intended solution at least to me

[Capybara007]

Just add functional binoculars  or telescope bruh

[GenomeSquirrel]

9 hours ago, bloopah said:

If there are only five unique spots players want to visit, then it's understandable people want something like this.

Expanding the ocean in content and map in size (as well as the five current ocean areas in content and size) would be a good step towards fixing that.

think of ocean travel as a long car ride, stuck on a highway for hours, no real interaction other than avoiding cars around you, with a few pit stops where you can have a bit of fun, and your destination where you have a lot of fun

expanding the ocean is just changing two hours of highway drudgery into four, the watery void is expansive enough, just need to fill empty with fun ...

but

they gave us minigames in the form of fishing, but that failed due to poor design/interface and rewards

there's stuff to fight, but the weapon is the same as usual, and loot isn't anything special

on a constructive note, making boating more friendly and rewarding could redeem it; but as someone that hated ocean content since Wind Waker, there's also a case for not wasting anymore time on it, time spent fixing the ocean could be devoted to fun content in an accessible location, but then look at what happened with caves ...

 

this late game focus is putting me in a bored, sullen mood; maybe I'll be more optimistic if another skill tree comes along ...

[Uedo]

9 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

The problem with DSTs ocean is that it’s empty and lacking of anything interesting between point A to point B, it’s like a hidden loading screen between actual content, it’s like waiting in a long elevator ride while the level loads.. And it shows in such a painfully obvious way.

You only need to play as Goose Woodie to quickly realize EVERYTHING that’s wrong with the ocean, there’s just nothing to do in it…

And to make matters worse the content your intended to engage with is contained to its own tiny little location, leaving nothing to do in between.

What SHOULD have happened was Waterlogged biomes should’ve been all around the map, Moon Quay Queen should’ve been in one central location.. but Moon Quay islands could’ve popped up in other areas-

The TL:DR is that Klei has all this new terrain, all these new mobs, but instead of making tiny islands out at sea with existing content on them… Klei keeps under using it.

a beach turf island, with a Palmcone Tree, a single Anenemy starfish, a single monkey tail bush, a tiny shell bell, and a Crustashine, a fallen survivors skeleton & a RockJaw circling the island would tell the story of a survivor who got shipwrecked at sea and couldn’t escape due to sharks so they starved to death on the island.

And that above scenario is ONLY using already existing content Klei has added to the game over the years, but under-used.

But it's not like a loading screen at all :s

[GelatinousCube]

I'd absolutely love some sort of similar mechanic to hunts to track down ocean creatures like Gnarwails, Rockjaws and maybe a new mob. Gnarwails could be the main result like Koala and Rockjaws and some other new aggro mob could be the other results like Ewecus and Varg. A nasty octopus or squid would be cool.

Hell even just some sort of bait that attracts/spawns a Gnarwail near you would be fantastic. They're so rare and yes I want more horns in my long-term world.. I always take blow darts or a ranged weapon when sailing now in the off chance I see one (only way to engage them on console and absolutely forget about feeding them on console it's borderline impossible - this needs a fix too). 

[MikoFanboy]

it was alway the boat that made everything else feel worse for me
but then when my friend finally convinced me to use the boat to explore the ocean again, it did feel a little better? from 0/10 to around 3-4/10 even though the content out there is still lackluster

then I got Pirate Raid, the the experience went straight down to -100/10

like the Ocean content already feels lackluster, I guess their solution is to straight up stop you from exploring how empty it is by adding those 

[bloopah]

11 hours ago, GenomeSquirrel said:

expanding the ocean is just changing two hours of highway drudgery into four, the watery void is expansive enough, just need to fill empty with fun ...

This is why I'm asking to resize the map and to expand the content. Having a bigger ocean means being able to fit more and bigger stuff in it. And when you have so much space, why not make existing content bigger as well? A lot of people are saying that the Moon Quay suffers because it has the issue of every Powder Monkey trying to plunder you at once, due to there being virtually no breathing room. So, there shouldn't be much issue in making the island bigger when the ocean is bigger.

[GenomeSquirrel]

2 hours ago, bloopah said:

Having a bigger ocean means being able to fit more and bigger stuff in it. And when you have so much space, why not make existing content bigger as well?

Because making the ocean bigger increases the dull, lifeless, uninteractive abyss, adding nothing but rowing to an already rowing filled experience 

there’s already space for a bigger quay, just move some water and rocks out of the way

[Captain_Rage]

5 hours ago, MikoFanboy said:

it was alway the boat that made everything else feel worse for me
but then when my friend finally convinced me to use the boat to explore the ocean again, it did feel a little better? from 0/10 to around 3-4/10 even though the content out there is still lackluster

then I got Pirate Raid, the the experience went straight down to -100/10

like the Ocean content already feels lackluster, I guess their solution is to straight up stop you from exploring how empty it is by adding those 

The boat is lovely niceeee but they might be an acquired taste. Part of the fun lies in relocating without having to walk. As Willow fuel efficiency is great and you get to stay warm and sane near a lit Firepit while moving. Wonderful for exploring and fishing during winter without having to worry about things like freezing or sanity management.

That being said, boats feel a bit unintentionally wonky at times, but generally speaking they fill their role.